Samsung's ATIV Book 9 Plus: 3200 x 1800 Display in an Ultrabook
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 20, 2013 7:46 PM EST
Earlier tonight Samsung introduced a convertible featuring a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800 display that runs both Windows 8 and Android. If the convertible form factor is a little too weird for you, Samsung also introduced an Ultrabook with the very same display.
Like many of the Ultrabooks announced in Taipei, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is a marriage of MacBook Air and rMBP. You get a form factor that's very similar to the 13-inch MBA, but with a display that's clearly aimed at the more expensive rMBP. Where the ATIV Book 9 Plus falls in pricing will be very interesting to see.
Internally, there's a familiar refrain: Core i5-4200U (Haswell ULT), DDR3L and an SSD. Like the ATIV Q, the SSD in this case is one of Samsung's own - the MZNTD128HAGM, a 6Gbps SATA M.2 drive. The machine ships with an integrated 55Wh battery and weighs 1.39 kg. Samsung claims up to 12 hours of battery life.
The notebook looked good in person. I'm a fan of the hidden SD card reader with spring loaded door. Just like we saw with the ATIV Q, the ATIV Book 9 Plus was running Windows 8 but I fully expect that it's meant for Windows 8.1's improved handling of high DPI displays.
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iamezza - Sunday, June 23, 2013 - link
derpingwe - Wednesday, June 26, 2013 - link
I like Apple and think their products work really well for some usage scenarios, but calm down man.ananduser - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Samsung makes the PCIe SSDs in Apple's recent MBA. What makes you think these devices made by Samsung don't have PCIe SSDs ? Sony's latest Vaios also sport PCIe SSDs. Here's a hint, according to Cnet, this unit boots in 6 seconds and wakes up in 1 second. Surely the SSD has some role in it and not just Windows8.Penti - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
What makes you think it does? It's a SATA M.2 SSD according to the product number showing up in Device manager. It's not that a huge difference between a SATA 6Gbps SSD and a AHCI PCIe x2 SSD, PCIe allows for grater bandwidth, but AHCI/SATA-commands still limits other aspects.piroroadkill - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Vaio Z is heroic. There's still no clear successor.Bias: I have Sony Vaio Z12 (Intel Core i5-520M 2.4 GHz, 8GiB RAM, 2x 64GB SSD RAID0, Geforce 330M GT 1GiB)
Aho - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
A shop named LambdaTek has the base model listed at £1102.68...not too bad I suppose...Ryan Smith - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
The fact that they'd bundle a 3200x1800 equipped laptop with a micro-HDMI port boggles my mind. That becomes such an awful decision the moment you want to hook up a HiDPI external display.Nothing less than mini-DP should be acceptable here.
piroroadkill - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Nice screen, but piss-weak CPU/GPU. That basically ruins it. I don't care too much about battery life as such - but give me Haswell with at least Iris 5100, or it's kind of a bust..Mondozai - Tuesday, August 20, 2013 - link
Moronic statement. Unless you need to do gaming(why?), you dont need Iris graphics.daviderickson - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
If there is anything to complain about it is the non-upgradeable 4GB of RAM.. that is truly bad... it should have 8 or 16 at least. And I can't tell, but it looks like only HDMI and USB3 ports? No Displayport makes me go something something.....